


The Universe’s Lullaby

by Lilmizzhugable13



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bullying, Child Abuse, Eating Disorders, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Romance, Slut Shaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2020-09-26 23:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20397847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilmizzhugable13/pseuds/Lilmizzhugable13
Summary: “She is sixteen when she sees him.The universe hates her.”(AU Doug/Evie with minor Mal/Ben and Chad/Evie. Adding tags as I go)





	1. Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. It’s been a while since I’ve uploaded on here. Whoops.
> 
> I had this idea written down for a long time, but I never got around to writing it until now. The day before fall semester starts. Whoops again.
> 
> Anyways, this is going to be a short fic. I got a few short chapters outlined, and I’m excited to be writing again. Hope y’all like this.

She is sixteen when she sees him.

Kids from Auradon, the northern gated community, and the Isle, the southern ghettos, never mix. It’s an unofficial law passed down for generations (one, really – a conflict started by their parents), but there are only two exceptions: school and Chad’s end of the school year party. She sees him in the latter. It’s a quick glimpse; a matchstick, quick and scorching hot that’s here one second and gone the next with a huff. She tries to follow him – follow the plaid shirt and oversized jeans and thick-rimmed glasses, follow the only other person besides herself who looks like they don’t want to be here. She blinks, closes her eyes for just one second, but it’s enough to bump into someone. Chad.

The universe hates her.

The following weeks are a blur of skin. Chad’s privileged palms gripping her small ones, his teeth biting on her overdeveloped chest, his weight settling between her smooth thighs. It is all one lightning rod of muddy colors, heavy breaths, and skin painted red by his shame and her letters. The only feeling she even bothers to savor is relief. He is the solution to her mother’s demands, but even as a reckless teenager, she knows is isn’t going to last. Guys like Chad don’t stick around for lovestruck teenagers. What makes Evie any different?

Two months later, they break up. They were never together to begin with. They only spent nights together either in his car or her basement, and even then, Evie couldn’t stand him. Her stomach twisted every time they kissed, and it stained her words with a bitter note. She started wearing jackets and turtlenecks one week into this fling to cover his marks, but it wasn’t enough to stop her throat from constricting whenever she made eye contact with her classmates. She hated those two months.

But ask Chad and he’ll say a different story, one that everyone believed. Even her mother, which is why she placed Evie on another diet because obviously it was Evie’s fault for the failed relationship; if she wasn’t so fat and ugly, Chad wouldn’t have given up on her.

“Relationships are a bunch of bullshit,” Mal tells her when she’s fifteen pounds lighter, hands tilting the mouth of an empty bottle into her lips for one more sip.

The rest of her friends agree, raising a bottle and toasting to those words, but Evie stays silent. It might be bullshit, but she wants that. She wants a husband and kids and a house with a white picket fence. She wants to garden and cook and clean and provide. That’s what she’s meant for. That’s what her mother has been training her to do. She wants that, but just not with Chad.

A relationship with a class-difference built on hormones that held no commitment is taboo, ostracized by society. Heads turned and people talked, and the memory of it still has her cringing even when summer passes and a new semester starts, but it’s pointless. Chad is gone. She left him (no matter what he told everyone else), and it is onto the next boy waiting in line.

The next boy turns out to be him.


	2. September

_ Doug _ she learns on the first day of sophomore year when he sits down next to her at the back of the class. There are plenty of seats in the front next to people who actually listen to the lesson, and if that isn’t his thing (which she highly doubts), then there’s seats in the middle next to people who pride themselves with B’s and C’s. Instead, he sits with the ones who spend class on their phone when they even bother to show up, and he sits with the whore or slut or whatever they’re calling her now. He doesn’t even acknowledge the stares; he just turns to her with a too-wide-to-be-casual smile and offers a hand.

It’s sweaty when she takes it, but she only finds it _ endearing._

He likes her. She finds out through the cracks in his voice and the stumbling of his words. He’s always nervous around her, and she doesn’t know how to handle something like this. Boys aren’t nervous around her. They’re supposed to be full of themselves and Evie’s supposed to be full of butterflies. Instead, she finds herself in control, the one who takes charge and makes decisions. This is something new to her, so what was she supposed to do other than corner him under the bleachers and kiss him?

(Just two days after he sits next to her. Fuck, she _ is _ a slut.)

The kiss remains chaste, even when her tongue licks his lips, and when she’s bored at the lack of pressure, she moves onto his neck. There she can bite and lick and suck, taking out her frustrations on his skin. Throughout this, he keeps his hands by his side. All kisses shared between them are like this. Sometimes, if he’s feeling particularly adventurous and Evie presses the right buttons, his mind is clouded enough to let his hands slide up her arms and behind her neck. Never through her hair, because she will kill him if he even thinks about messing it up and he knows it. So did Chad, but he never listened to her. Once he even came in her hair, and by the time she got home, it crusted and took forever to wash out. God, she hates him.

But _ Doug_, he listens and respects the boundaries she places: he can’t tell people without her approval, no hand-holding, he can’t sit with her and her friends in lunch, don’t mess her hair up, he can’t come to her house. And he just nods without a second thought, agreeing to anything she says if it means he gets a chance with her.

And being listened to is a powerful aphrodisiac to Evie. It lets her ignore the glaring error with Doug: he’s not rich.

She knew nothing about him before they became lab partners, and that itself was a red flag for Evie. She knew everyone in school who was remotely high-status. Ben and Chad are the kings, the ones she aimed for as a freshman, and Audrey and Jane were her fallbacks because money is fluid. She crossed Chad out of the list for obvious reasons and if the rumors were true, her blue hair is a few shades from Ben’s type, but instead of working her way down the list, she’s ignoring it for unsatisfying make-outs after school.

She can already feel her mother’s belt slapping against her skin, taste the blood in her mouth, smell the bleach stains on the rug. There isn’t any other way this will end, and it terrifies her.

But instead of doing the sensible thing and ending this before it can actually form into a relationship, Evie keeps dragging him into dark corners and pressing into him like if he’s the solution to all her problems. He’s not. She knows this, but she conveniently forgets it when their lips meet. If she doesn’t know any better, her overzealous heart would call it true love. Thankfully, she has enough sense to keep her thoughts together.

She may wear her heart on her sleeve, but she’s not stupid enough to show it to anyone.

But _ Doug _ – poor boy doesn’t understand how cruel people can be.

She has a wider, more cynical view of the universe, a view well beyond what he sees. He doesn’t (or simply chooses not to) see the notoriety they’ve already earned from their fellow classmates; he just _ likes _ her and wants to _ date _ her. And if that isn’t the most romantic thing Evie has ever seen, she doesn’t know what romance is.

But she doesn’t need romance. She needs money and a big house.

It’s barely Friday, five days since she’s known Doug and two days since she first kissed him.

She made up her mind to break up with him Thursday night. Friday morning, she lets the conversation flow between the rest of her friends on the walk to school. Friday noon, she spots Doug waiting in line for food. Friday noon (two minutes later), Doug spots her and smiles. Friday last period, he beats her to class and pulls out the stool for her when she walks in. Friday after school, she pulls him into an empty supply closet and kisses him.

Soon, a month passes, and she still doesn’t break up with him.


	3. October

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y’all!
> 
> So just a full disclosure, I am going to change the title of this fic at some point because really when I was first writing this, I had an idea where this was going but nothing set in stone. Now I do, and it’s going slightly different than the full on angst-hurt fest I initially wanted. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still angst, but just not the depressing, heartbreaking, guy-wrenching one I envisioned.
> 
> So the original idea is being repurposed into another fic and this fic is going to be something new. The first two chapters are still the same. I only edited some minor errors in grammar and changed the chapter title. Story title change will come at some point in my life. I just suck at titles y’all.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

Two months into the relationship, things start to screw up. She doesn’t mind lying to her mother. “Yes mother, I am dating someone. Yes, he is wealthy. Yes, his family is prestigious. Yes, I am trying to get him to marry me.” Maybe it’s worse than the truth, but it’s just another piece of shame she carries.

The rumors are the real problem. The first month didn’t catch anyone’s attention. They’ve heard about Evie; they’ve heard about Doug. Putting two and two together, it adds up to Doug staying for the sex and Evie for the validation. That’s okay for one month. But two months? That means commitment, and no crime is greater than an Auradonian being in a committed relationship with an Isle kid.

Other kids in the hallway whisper behind her back, raising the fine hairs on her arms and neck. Nothing they say was overly threatening, just the usual names, but it’s the principle and pain behind their cruel words and hidden sneers that make her skip school. Her mother loves having her at home; it meant more time for cooking lessons and beautify cleanses. Her friends are indifferent; they don’t like school either, but they also aren’t as sensitive as Evie. Doug is really the only one who has a problem, especially when he realizes all she’s doing is cooking and cleaning.

But he doesn’t fight her. He never does when it’s about her limits, so instead, he compromises. He reaches a deal with her teachers and the counselors, and they allow him to tutor her privately. She’ll only have to attend class on test days, midterms, and finals.

And that pisses her off, because she sees the insincerity behind the decision. _ No child left behind _ – a group of words pretty enough to engrave on a plaque and hang it on the brick archway above closed gates. What’s a promise to the public is nothing more than a contractual agreement for the school. The board would give anything to just drop their most troublesome students, and it’s painfully obvious for those (like Evie) who choose to acknowledge their odds, and the odds are simple enough to understand: if your parents aren’t rich, then there’s nothing for you in Auradon. You’re only options are to dedicate your life to crime (Jay), leech off your parents for as long as you can (Carlos), become the best of the worst and live off of other people’s misery (Mal), or get married and become someone else’s problem (Evie’s obvious choice).

But then there’s the ones that hope to change that. It’s not the Isles, never them, and it’s rarely the Auradonians. No, those people are somehow just here, never fitting in with one of the two groups but never standing out either. They just fade into the background, waiting until they have the opportunity to leave this town and never do anything to change this system. Not that Evie blames them. Auradon (and herself really) is a lost cause as far as she’s concerned.

But now, she has a name and a face_. _Doug.

He goes to school at the crack of dawn for solo practice, attends all his classes, stays after school for marching, then meets Evie afterwards – sixteen hours, Evie calculates one day while she waits until it’s time to scrub her face mask off, and never once does he complain.

About his situation, at least. He may complain about how he needs new tape because his callouses keep breaking, or how Chad won’t stop trying to hit on Audrey even though she’s making it extremely clear she’s not interested and taken, or how he needs to go to the optometrist to update his prescription because he can hardly see the lines on the football field which makes him miss his marks sometimes, or how Mr. Deley keeps submitting appeals to the principal to overturn their arrangement and demands meetings with Doug to see whether or not he’s keeping Evie on track.

It’s almost too much for him, whether he wants to admit it to her or not, and even before the first week ends, Evie’s ready to end the arrangement. For his sake because fuck, Evie isn’t worth that much. She’ll just start going back to <strike>the hallways and the stares and the whispers and the words</strike> school or officially drop out, whichever the principal agrees to.

But when she gets her first set of tests back on Friday, she can’t suppress the smile on her face when she sees him next. They agree to meet at the park a few blocks from school. It’s a long bus ride from her house, dangerous too considering she’s carrying a basket that was tempting for anyone desperate enough (and there were plenty in their public transport), but once she gets there and see him sitting on a picnic table, she knows the hour ride full of heated stares (on her basket and her body) is worth this. And once she quietly sets the basket down on the ground next to her and loops her arms around his shoulders to show him her grades (nothing below a B), she knows this is all worth it for him too.

They spend the day together, there in a public park not far from school on a beautiful Saturday afternoon where anyone and everyone can see. They walk a bit, sit by the lake and watch ducks, squeeze in a combined lesson on ecosystems and probability, walk a bit more, and eat the burgers Evie brought.

It’s the first meal they’ve shared together, a fact Evie realizes when she’s already home with a charcoal mask on her face. She’s supposed to keep her face still, but she can’t help smiling when she remembers how much mustard Doug drowned his burger in. Or how he mixes mayo and ketchup to make a pink paste to dip his fries in. Or how he demanded her recipe for such a simple meal because he swore it was the best burger he ever ate.

Besides, her mother always said the quickest way to know a man is through his stomach.

Well, those aren’t her exact words, but Evie doesn’t want Doug’s heart. She just wants to thank him – for not invalidating her weakness against their classmates, for finding a way to keep her flourishing in a way she felt comfortable, for teaching her when the people who were actually hired to do so had already given up, for finding her important enough.

He doesn’t need to know that cooking is usually Evie’s go-to whenever she wants a guy to see her as a potential wife, or that she only has two dollars and eight cents left after she bought all the ingredients. Meat and spices and veggies aren’t cheap, especially since she doesn’t have a job, but she knows it’ll be cheaper next time. After all, Doug doesn’t like tomatoes and he isn’t a fan of cinnamon. She’ll have to reduce the amount next time, which will make the small bottle last longer. She might even be able to bake a dessert with the remainder. Doug did say he liked apple pie, and Jay would be able to sneak her a bag of Granny Smith if she asked him to. And maybe some ice cream and sauce. She knows Doug loves caramel, but was it vanilla bean or Mexican vanilla ice cream that he liked more? Or was it-

_ Fuck. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what y’all think so far!!! Have a beautiful day.


	4. November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhh I know I’m hella late with this one. My plan was to upload each chapter with its corresponding month, but this one really sucked the life out of me. I don’t even like it that much, but I need to catch up and the December chapter is coming out cute, so I’m just gonna press forward and edit this chapter when I’m done.
> 
> Hope y’all don’t mind, and if you have any critiques, lmk! Go ahead and comment. I know the pacing’s off compared to my other chapters, and the events are kinda glossed over in this chapter, but I’m open to any suggestions!

He meets her friends three months in.

It’s at a football game of all things because apparently, Jay and Carlos are on the team this year. Some bullshit about Jay projecting his aggression into a healthy outlet – and unfortunately, he dragged Carlos in for the sake of making him miserable. It was good material for jokes, especially when both would leave practice with their bodies covered in dirt and scrapes.

She and Mal had been successful in weaseling out of the first games, but after “the best season of the Knights in the school’s history!” (according to their school’s newspaper), they are forced into going to the championship game. There’s no way Mal or Evie can miss this (according to Jay and Carlos).

Except, after standing in the freezing weather for two hours already, Evie’s starting to believe they could have. Jay and Carlos are being rotated in and out, narrowly avoiding any traumatic hits. The band keeps repeating the same four loud songs over and over. The announcer is too obnoxious to even be speaking. She’s anxious and annoyed and tired, and looking over at Mal, she can see the same frustration.

Only it’s directed at something else.

Once Evie notices the interesting dynamic between Mal and Ben… well, the last two hours aren’t such a burden anymore. She hardly notices the cold or the noise; how can she when the heated stares Ben sends Mal every few seconds makes her ears ring.

“It’s nothing,” Mal says about twelve minutes into the third quarter.

Evie scoffs. “Come on, M. ‘It’s nothing’ is practically bullshit between us.”

Mal hums, then sighs, “He doesn’t know what he wants, so right now, it’s nothing.”

“But it can be something?”

“Maybe.” Another song starts, and Evie perks up when she hears Doug count the band off. “What about you and band geek?”

“It’s nothing,” she replies immediately, and now they both know it’s not nothing.

Evie’s known for a few weeks now. Ever since that first B she received in Biology, she felt something shift in her. Not Doug – no, Doug is still the same, but that in itself is another thing she doesn’t want to analyze. Not yet, and maybe not ever. Who knows? Not Evie.

The song dies down as the third quarter finishes.

“You wanna know the biggest difference between us?” Mal asks and doesn’t even wait for an answer before continuing, “Whenever you say it’s nothing, I mind my own business.”

The words are a little harsher than Evie is used to, but she knows it’s just the cold and the noise that brought out the bitterness in Mal. Besides, it’s hard to take M seriously when her teeth won’t stop clattering.

“Aw, M, you know your business is my business. If it wasn’t, where would you be right now?”

“Still with Harry.”

They both laugh just as another flag gets thrown on the field.

The game ends with Jay and Carlos help Ben score the winning touchdown. Evie still doesn’t understand what’s going on or what happened, but the next thing she knows, her and Mal are somehow herded onto the field and into the mass of celebrating people. They find Jay and Carlos easily enough. Jay’s wide enough to carve a hole in the crowd, and Carlos is always by his side. Their smiles are infectious, and Evie finds herself giggling at nothing.

But of course, it all comes to a screeching halt when Doug runs up to her and stops directly in front of her. He’s so close, too close that the feather on his hat brushes against her nose every time he exhales heavily, and it makes her skin crawl for a moment.

But then she looks at his face – the vibrance of his blue eyes, the sweat dripping from his temple, the smile he usually reserves when his jokes make her giggle.

She’s seen these before. Doug is an expressive person, so wholesome and kind that he doesn’t even try to hide his emotions. He wears his heart on his sleeve and proudly displays it to anyone who’s curious enough. He doesn’t understand the ways people can use it against him, the ways Evie can manipulate him.

Or maybe he does and just doesn’t care.

And neither does Evie at this point, because they’re three months in (the longest relationship she’s ever had) and all she can think about is that stupid feather on his stupid hat that’s brushing between their stupid faces that have stupid matching smiles.

God, she just wants to kiss him.

But for some reason, she stops and looks around her. Carlos is holding a trophy. Jay is resting his arm on Carlos’s head. Mal’s is leaning into Ben. And Doug is there, next to her, paying no attention to their surroundings. He’s completely focused on her, and for the first time in a long time, she understands how he can be so focused on her.

Because right now, he’s all that matters to her. Him and that stupid feather.

“Hey, guys,” she calls out, and when she sees she has their attention, she continues, “this is Doug. Doug, this is Mal, Jay, and Carlos.”

She doesn’t know what she expected. Maybe for Carlos to make a cruel joke or Jay to rough Doug up or Mal to be completely indifferent to his existence, but instead, they all smile. And talk. And laugh. And it makes Evie giggle again.

Then, after a few sweet minutes, they separate. Doug has plans with a few other band geeks. Ben has this ritual he does at the end of each game with the rest of the football players. The four of them have nothing planned, but they know they’re spending the rest of the night together.

Evie pecks Doug on the cheek. “Text me when you’re home.”

“Okay. Yeah. Sure. Okay,” he stumbles, face flushing a shade lighter than her lipstick stain. It would be humorous if it isn’t so endearing. “Okay.”

The stadium fades into background as Mal quietly recounts her situation with Ben. They’re squished into Jay’s junkyard truck, a mess of limbs and laughs. Jay and Carlos edge each other on, forming a constant flow of banter that goes unnoticed by the small bubble formed around Evie and Mal. It’s been a while since they’ve had a moment like this, and Evie knows it’s mostly her fault. Most of her time is spent either at home or with Doug, and since she doesn’t go to school anymore, she rarely has an opportunity to see her friends. This is one of those rarities, and they waste no time buying a few cases of beers, getting to an abandoned gas station in their side of town, and catching up.

They each have their own things, now. Because of football, Carlos joined the cross-country team which somehow lead to him helping out at the animal shelter on the weekends (Evie’s still unclear as to how that happened). Jay is constantly working out, especially since he’s signed up for the fencing and karate team. It’s a little excessive, something Evie points out, but Jay just laughs and claims he only wants to “dominate every sport and show these princes how to play” whatever that means. Mal joined the art club a few weeks back after she was caught by Ben tagging some building. Something about putting her _ talent _ to good use or some other bullshit, but once she joined and once the art teacher noticed that talent, Mal was given her own section of a studio and spends any free time there.

“I mean, I get my own paint for free. I get canvases for free. I get to eat, sleep, and fucking live there. Why not take advantage of it?”

“Because art sucks.”

“Fuck off. At least it’s better than poking someone with a really long toothpick.”

“At least I’m doing something more than running.”

“At least I can run for more than 20 seconds.”

“At least I’m not anywhere near that shit anymore.”

They spend the night together, and when her phone vibrates at midnight with a reminder of Thanksgiving, she takes it as an opportunity to send a message to Doug thanking him for dealing with her. It’s a long paragraph, one that doesn’t even bother with grammar or punctuation, but rereading it in the morning doesn’t result in the usual shame that she’s learned to associate with drunk texts. It doesn’t even bother her that Doug didn’t reply because she knows he’s still typing-deleting-retyping a response, trying to find the right words to say. And that’s fine, because it means they’re finally on the same page.

Evie’s always been afraid of change, but _ this_? This doesn’t feel scary at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch up this month. December will definitely be posted this month, so at the latest I’ll be caught up by February.
> 
> Thank you for your kind words. I love y’all.


	5. December

Christmas Eve is spent with her friends, the four of them holing up in a shabby diner two hours out of the city. The weather is bad, the food worse, but it’s better than spending the day with their parents. At least like this, Evie can eat a greasy hamburger without her mother scolding her. She even treats herself with a milkshake. It’s saccharine for her taste and she feels sick the rest of the night, but waking up Christmas Day and still feeling full from the night before is worth the nausea.

December 26th is spent with Doug. They agreed no presents beforehand, mostly because Evie’s too poor to get him anything. She doesn’t know why Doug agreed (except she does – it’s because Evie said so), but there’s a sense of weightlessness when she meets Doug that day. The winter has been relatively warm this season, but it’s below freezing the night before, and they both know it won’t get any warmer in the day, so Doug suggests meeting in the library.

The library isn’t open for the holidays, but a favor from the librarian makes it possible. Study rooms aren’t a new sight for Evie, but the blankets and pillows spread out are. So are the movies; historical ones from the library because they’re the only ones that can be played on the projector, but Evie hardly pays attention to them when Doug doesn’t stop talking.

The stories are new too, the ones Doug can barely tell through his laughter, and it’s the most talkative he’s ever been around her. She can’t follow most of them – too many names of people she doesn’t know – but she laughs along because the coffee settles warmly on her chest and she thinks his laughter is hilarious. The only lighting comes from the projector, and in that ethereal glow, Doug is the most beautiful man she’s seen.

They’re sitting side to side, their backs against the wall opposite to where the movie plays on. She sinks deeper into the blanket and shifts, turning into Doug and resting her legs over his. His words never stop, but his hands do move to rest just above her knee. She can feel the warmth even through the fabric.

The stories blur together, but when his question, “What about you?” brings a sharp clarity.

“Huh?”

A _ slow _ sharp clarity.

“What did you do Christmas?” he asks again, the small smile never leaving his expression.

Evie tries to match it, even as she says, “Oh, nothing. My mom doesn’t celebrate Christmas,” but she knows the answer disappoints him. She tries not to take it personally; after all, Doug knows she’s someone who doesn’t have the luxury to create stories like his.

“But the night before,” she starts before she can stop herself. It’s a habit of hers: pleasing men at any expense. She finally recognized the behavior as toxic, and it’s something she swore to stop doing after she promised to do Chad’s homework for his summer classes. And while she does feel some disappointment in herself, it’s mollified when she sees the small glimmer of excitement in his eyes. “Mal, Jay, Carlos, and I hung out.”

“What did you do?”

“We drank.”

“Of course.” It’s blunt, but it just makes her laugh.

“We started drinking in the morning. ‘Mimosas’ or something like that, I don’t know. Ben made Mal try it once and she’s kind of obsessed with it, but that alcohol that it’s mixed with?”

“Champagne?”

“Yeah, we didn’t have that because it’s so expensive, so we ended up mixing orange juice with coronas and drank that.”

“Was it good?”

“No,” she laughs, “but it’s alcohol. Then we ran out of coronas and Jay wanted more, so we’re piling into Jay’s truck.”

“Sounds like a bad idea.”

“Anything sounds like a good idea when you’re buzzed.” And then he laughs, and goosebumps cover Evie’s skin. “There was so much happening in the car that we ended up passing the gas station, drove right out of the city, and found a diner on the side of the road where we ate.” She loses her train of thought when Doug starts moving his thumb, stroking her leg. She sighs, her hand reaching for his. “A lot of trees when you reach the outskirts.”

He nods, meeting her hand halfway. “There’s a lake out there.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Ben took us out there one summer in middle school. It was supposed to be this whole camping-bonding experience, but Audrey hated dirt and Chad kept complaining about the humidity.”

His name should do something to her, make her feel contempt or irritated, but it doesn’t. Instead, she smiles and says, “Sounds fun.”

“It was, especially when Chad accidentally knocked down a beehive.”

“Wait, what?” Then Doug laughs, and when he moves his hands from hers to gesture specific parts of that summer, she leaves her hand open on her lap so he can place it back when he’s done.

The beauty of a still cold season, the isolation of an empty library, the aroma from exotic coffee beans she can only dream about affording, the warmth of pure blankets and pillows, the movie droning on in the background; it all settles heavily on her chest – and when his hand finds hers again, the realization hits her:

He’s it for her.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave any feedback you have and have a great day y’all!!!


End file.
